Get Around

British newspaper the Guardian named the Sognefjellet one of the top 10 cycle rides in the world (Guardian (2007)).

Despite being one of the most remote and rugged roads in Europe, the Sognefjellet is easily accessed by public transport, with two buses daily in the summer leaving Sogndal on the South-West side, and Lom in the North-East side, connecting with buses to Otta (route information on Fjord1).

By Bus

From Sogndal the bus headed out from the town and joins the Lustrafjorden, the very end of the Sognefjorden – the longest in Norway. The road impressively and smoothly traverses its shores to the village of Skjolden where the waters end.

From there the route heads steeply up past gulleys and streams, menacing waterfalls, impassable rapids, into the cloud, and beyond. The glacier and rain-fed rivers get ever wilder, until, dramatically, the road sweeps onto the flat plateaux.

The landscape is bare rock, and even in July ice is all around: floating in opaque blue lakes, in great drifts covering whole mountain-sides, and hanging from peaks higher-still, the great glaciers of the Jotunheimen. Other than a couple of hostels there is little but rock and ice, and our trusty road, the Sognefjellet.

As suddenly the road joined the plateaux it leave it: at Krossbu the road glides into the virgin Bøvre river valley, a narrow scar in the highlands, fringed with dizzying waterfalls, which gradually widens and opens out into the Ottadalen at Lom. From there it connects to buses towards Otta, you can also catch servies from here back East.

Stay

There are a couple of hostels up on the plateaux, bustling with skiiers and hikers. See DNT and Sognefjellet.